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Key dates over March 1916

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Lives lost on this day: 0

26th March 1916 - Miss Margesson shares experience with women land workers

Rolling Casualty Count: 2821

At the Front:

1st Batt: Billets are good but the weather is wet and cold

2nd Batt: Batt marched to church in the Municipal Theatre at 9.30am.

9th Batt: Turkish forces had been made up of unreliable Arab Batts. Now they are strengthened by first rate troops who had fought at the Dardenelles.

On the Home Front:

8th Battalion: Better Weather: Mr. and Mrs. Rouse, Fern Villa, Chestnut Walk, have received a letter from their son,, Pte. E. Rouse, of the 1/8th Battalion Worcs. Regt., who is at the front, his brother, Albert, is in the artillery abroad: “The weather out here is getting all right now, more like summer every day, no rain or snow for about a week. About a fortnight ago we had plenty of snow and it was a nice mess in the trenches. Many a night whe I have been up to my knees in mud and water I have longed to be near the old fire at home, sitting in the old arm chair. I am going to be a machine gunner, a wire cutter, and a bomber, but I don’t mind, they will come in useful some time. We gave them a good doing. Trust our artillery for that. They will look after us.”

Women on the Land: At a meeting of women, at Stourport, Miss Margesson, daughter of Lady Isabel Margesson, of Barnt Green, said she and her mother were running a small farm, and for working in the farmyard found that the most adequate foot-gear was wooden clogs. On the land strong boots were best, and the boots which the Government were having made for women workers were excellent. She advised women to wear breeches and short skirts for their work, and said an increasing number of women were becoming skilled workers with the plough. The Hon. Mary Pakington said the decision of the Government to call up more men from the land made the call to women to work on the land more imperative, and she was confident that English women would prove as loyal and useful on the land as French women had proved themselves to be.

Information researched by the WWW100 team.